Charles Barkley on Turner Gill

"I think race was the No. 1 factor," said Barkley, who played basketballfor three seasons at Auburn during the early 1980s. "You can say it's not aboutrace, but you can't compare the two resumes and say [Chizik] deserved the job.Out of all the coaches they interviewed, Chizik probably had the worst resume."

Yowza.

But is he wrong? Chizik clearly sucks as a head coach. And I don't want to hear that "he was only there for two years, what do you expect, miracles?" argument. Turner Gill wasn't ask to do anything other than make Buffalo competitive, and went ahead and performed miracles anyway. Anyone who is worth a poop as a coach can win *a* conference game.

There are some other interesting notes from this article:

Barkley, who works as an NBA analyst for Turner Network Television, said hespoke with Gill before Gill interviewed with Auburn officials last week.

"We talked about the whole race thing in Alabama," Barkley said. "I told him it'sthere and it's going to be anywhere you go. I told him you can't not take thejob because of racism. He was worried about being nothing more than a tokeninterview. He was concerned about having a white wife. It's just verydisappointing to me."

Those comments are very sad. Very sad. How the hell is Turner still getting "token" interviews? He won the flipping MAC Championship at Buffalo against an undeafeated, ranked team! People were talking about if he could win 4 or 5 games a year, it would be a success--and he's winning conference championships at year 3. Unreal.

This was the best point, I thought:

"My biggest problem with the black coaches is they're not getting jobs andthey're getting [expletive] jobs when they are hired," Barkley said. "They'renot getting good jobs. They're not getting jobs where they can be successful.That's why I wanted Turner to get the Auburn job. He could win consistently atAuburn. You can't win consistently at New Mexico. You can't win consistently atKansas State. He could have won at Auburn."

I think this is basically true. It is strange; it is almost as though Tyrone Willingham was the only guy that is going to get a shot--and since he screwed it up, people are tepid. This, of course, is ridiculous.

Ultimately--Turner Gill or not--how Gene Chizik got the Auburn job is just beyond me. How you are on the edge of being fired at Iowa State leads to getting a SEC job is insane.

Oh, and one more thing: LOL at Chuck's comment about Kansas State. You suck, K-State. Even the Chuckster knows it.

This whole turn of events that led to Chizik being hired is just astonishing. This guy was going to get another season at Iowa State, but I can absolutely tell you that no one was excited about it, and then all of a sudden he is getting what is absolutely one of the Top 20 jobs in America.

I really see this as college football's answer to what's transpired in the country-at-large: basically if you suck at your job, you get rewarded. Tommy Tuberville did not suck at his job, in fact he is a damn good coach that any school should be happy with, and he gets canned by some shit-for-brains AD in the pocket of boosters.

As far as the hire being racially motivated, it absolutely was, and here's how we know: if you were doing the hire and you cared one iota about the public perceiving you or your organization as racist, how could you possibly explain Chizik was the better guy?

Look at their head coaching resumes: Chizik- inherited a program that went to 5 bowl games in six years, went 5 and 19 in two seasons, had many of his best players transfer

Gill-inherited a team that won like 10 games in 7 years, wins the MAC championship in 3 years.

I mean there's no comparison. None. If you take race out of it, the choice is clear cut. If you put race into it and you still have a "gut feeling" or whatever that Chizik is the guy, you would generally do a lot of things to make it abundantly clear that race was not an issue, etc, or just hire Gill out of guilt (rightly or wrongly).

If you're Auburn you:1. Hire the less qualified white guy2. Do nothing to explain yourself, figuring (correctly) that most of your fans wouldn't want the black guy with the white wife anyway3. Look like shit to Chuck Barkley, me, GA Hill, and many other outraged Americans.

Gill or Tuberville should be coaching Auburn next year. That's for fucking sure.

I hope Gill doesn't settle for the Iowa State job. Sure, it would be a step up, being in the Big 12 and all. But he should hold out, show everyone that this year wasn't a fluke, then land a whopper next year. He's got 9 starters returning on defense next year. TG is on the map now, and Chuck is making a statement for him, not that he needed it. I have no doubt that TG could be successful in Ames, but I also have no doubt that he could do better than ISU.

I hope he doesn't go to Ames simply because I don't want to face a Turner Gill-led Iowa State squad every year.

I would agree with you though, Sambuca--he's got a lot of people coming back next year. Rattle off a one or two loss season next year, repeat the MAC, and extend 2 middle fingers to everyone that passed him over this year and get a big job.

Gill just signed an extension with Buffalo and says that he won't pursue any other coaching positions this year. Hopefully he will continue transforming the Buffalo program and eventually get the job he deserves.

Not sure if anyone is still interested, but my local sources say that ISU AD Jamie Pollard is extremely interested in Tulsa's Todd Graham. Graham runs a very wide open, high scoring offense that could allow ISU to at least get in the same stadium as the rest of the pass happy Big XII.

I really like the fresh perceptive you did on the issue. Really was not expecting that when I started off studying. Your concepts were easy to understand that I wondered why I never looked at it before. Glad to know that there's an individual out there that definitely understands what he's discussing. Great job